In Barcelona and the wider Catalonia rail network, the Spanish Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility has awarded a €1.2 million contract, including VAT, for a study to quadruple railway tracks between Castelldefels and El Prat de Llobregat.
SAITEC SAU will carry out the analysis over 30 months. The work is meant to improve capacity and adapt the infrastructure for future traffic on the R2 Sud line, which connects Castelldefels to Sants Station in Barcelona.
The contract also includes a second study to increase capacity on the section between El Prat de Llobregat and Sants Station. The project forms part of the Plan de Rodalies de Catalunya 2020-2030, which is intended to improve network capacity and urban integration.
According to the Ministry of Transport, the aim is to provide greater capacity and reliability for services coming from the south, allow dynamic overtakes, and increase the speed of regional services on this section. A four-track layout would let regional trains from Tarragona or the Ebre region overtake local commuter trains that stop at every station.
The Associació per a la Promoció del Transport Públic (PTP) has calculated that the changes could save between seven and eight minutes on this section, and up to 15 minutes on the full journey to Barcelona. SAITEC will produce two separate studies, one for Castelldefels to El Prat and another for El Prat to Sants, setting out alternatives and the technical actions needed to raise capacity.
The award comes two months after Adif, Spain's railway infrastructure manager, rejected the construction contract for the track quadrupling. That decision stopped the drafting of the technical project, which had been tendered in June 2024 for more than €4 million. The project has now returned to a preliminary stage and will need a new public tender.
Railway officials said a change in criteria for the informative study, an initial administrative step managed by the Ministry of Transport, led to the decision. The drafting of the technical project, won by multinational TyLin in December 2024, was estimated to take around 36 months, which would have pushed construction to no earlier than 2029. The original Rodalies plan from 2020 set aside €4 million for the works until 2025 and another €79 million before 2030, while the revised programme now allocates €2.59 million until 2030 and €67 million after that period.